Posted
by
timothyon Thursday February 20, 2014 @12:29PM
from the models-meta-models-and-mega-ultra-super-models dept.

bunratty writes "According to recent articles by Roy Spencer and John Christy, our climate models have done a poor job of predicting warming due to humans burning fossil fuels. They claim that we've observed only a fraction of the warming they predict. But when I look at the source they claim to use, the State of the Climate in 2012, I see that it shows a warming of 0.7 degrees Celsius worldwide since 1980, close to the 0.8 degrees Celsius warming predicted by the climate models. Take a look at the data for yourself. How well do our predictions match our observations?"

Well, no, it doesn't just need a 2C drop to get an ice age. It needs a continuous temperature shift of 2C or more in higher-latitude temperate regions without any significant actions to remove the snow. After a couple years of that remaining true, the increased snow cover will become self-sustaining until acted on by a sufficient contrary change of some kind. Then you get an ice age.

Dramatic climate changes don't work off the global average temperature, they work off regional interactions across large enough scales to become resistant to the minor fluctuations.

On a global scale, indeed: 0.7C is a small variation. The Earth has had larger variations before, and this is not unusual on a geological scale (although to be fair, its happening at a faster time scale than most of the climate changes in the past.)However, 0.7C pretty much validates the models. If the anthropogenic greenhouse effect is not real, you need three things:(1) You need to find an explain an explanation for why the radiative forcing does not increase temperature(2) You need to find a hitherto-unknown effect that is causing the warming that we measure, and(3) You need to find an explanation for why the amplifier that amplifies effect (2) to be large enough to increase the temperature doesn't also amplify the greenhouse effect. (and, contrawise, you need to explain why whatever effect it is that cancels out the greenhouse effect, (1), does not also cancel out effect (2).)

While 0.7C may be small, you should also note that we are continuing to put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

If you want to assert the anthropogenic greenhouse effect is both real, and dangerous, the burden of proof is on the affirmative to come up with a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement which rules out natural climate change as the reason for observed temperatures.

0.7C doesn't validate a non-falsifiable model, even if that's close to what the model predicted. Even astrologists make predictions, but astrology isn't science.

If you want to assert the anthropogenic greenhouse effect is both real, and dangerous, the burden of proof is on the affirmative to come up with a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement which rules out natural climate change as the reason for observed temperatures.

OK. My prediction is that if you aim an infrared spectrometer at the sky, you will see downwelling infrared radiation from the CO2 spectrum.

This prediction is falsified if you don't see downwelling infrared radiation.

Hey, we see it! I win. Carbon dioxide actually does re-radiate absorbed thermal infrared. The greenhouse effect is real.

This was done over a century ago, by the way. The greenhouse effect has been known for a long time. Good thing, too; the Earth would be frozen if it didn't exist.

1) easy, CO2 is a pretty shitty greenhouse gas water is much more important.

Water is indeed a very good greenhouse gas. It also condenses out of the atmosphere, in the form of rain. Carbon dioxide does not. As a result, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has a long-term effect. The amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, on the other hand, goes in and out of the atmosphere on a short time scale, driven primarily by the temperature-- warmer air holds more water than cold air.

The infrared absorption of carbon dioxide is measured, by the way. It's not something made up.

2) we've been coming out of an ice age for 10,000 years,

Correct-- or, more correct, we are out of the ice age.

that this remains unexplained

Fifty years ago it was unexplained. It's pretty well understood now.

leaves any "blame the humans" nonsense as laughable.

The fact that there causes of climate variation other than human input does not imply that human input doesn't also have an effect. As was pointed out, the effect is small, about 0.7C so far. But it is real.

3) no, you dont, see one and 2

The theory matches the data. If you have another theory, you have to both explain why the theory based on actual measured facts, like the absortion of infrared by carbon dioxide, isn't true, and you also have to explain why we see rising temperature anyway

like the sea rising... panicing about a few mm when in many places it changes on a meter scale every day.

Huh? I'm not panicking. I do, however, believe that it is important to not dismiss the science because you don't like the conclusions.

The lifetime of water emitted into the air is so short that no, you really don't get a long-lasting greenhouse effect by directly emitting water. It condenses out. We call this "rain" on our planet.

It is, however, an amplifying effect: if you make the average temperature a little bit warmer for some other reason, that means that more water evaporates and the atmosphere can hold more water, which raises the temperature. This increases the effect of other greenhouse gasses, such as CO2.

its absorbtion and radiationbut more CO2 definately doesn't mean a hotter atmosphere.Because you don't just trap more heat - you also prevent more sunlight entering in the first place.

No. Take a look at the solar spectrum some time. Almost all of the energy of incident sunlight is in a spectrum range in the visible and near IR-- peaking around one micron. The energy of the exiting infrared is in much longer infrared-- ten to twenty microns. (The fact that it's longer wavelength is Wien's law). You can have an atmosphere transparent to incident light, but absorbing to exiting infrared. This was discovered in the late 1700s.

Venus isn't hot because of the greenhouse effect, it's hot because of the enormous pressures caused by an incredibly dense atmosphere.

I'm sorry, but at this point you are revealing that you don't actually understand what you're talking about, so bye, have a nice life.

You really think the temperature of venus is from the greenhouse effect?

Yes. In fact, because the atmosphere of Venus is so opaque in the thermal infrared, it is easy to analyze-- it's one of the few planets that can be analyzed with a relatively simple back-of-the-envelope calculation.

That's funny.

If you don't understand that the temperature of surface of Venus is due to the greenhouse effect, you don't understand the greenhouse effect. It's not actually a crime to not understand something-- the greenhouse effect is poorly explained in popular culture, and few people have even a clue how

Geoff,You don't seem to get it, the CAGW crowd including yourself want huge sums of money taken from people to do something (like fuck the energy sector) and keep coal plants from being built by denying financing through the world bank (already happening) so poor countries are taking it in the ass economically.

No, actually, I don't.

I want people to understand the science. I want people to understand that there is science here; that the greenhouse effect has been known and studied for a long time, it is relatively well understood, and the models are well tested. I want people to stop attacking the science when they don't like the political consequences that they believe would ensue if they believed it. The argument "it would be extremely expensive if the science were correct so therefore the science must be wro

Anyway, during which ice age did the Earth's tilt change, or eccentricity increase?

With axial obliquity, axial precession, apsidal precession and two orbital Inclinations, maybe someone capable of handling the multitude cyclical combinations affecting weather can come up with an exact answer. It appears one or both of the orbital inclinations are the ones seriously considered responsible for the ice ages.

Summarizing:

Axial Obliquity: ~ Every 41,000 years ~ Presently at 23.5 degrees and decreasing toward its minimum of 22 degrees (22 to 24.5).
Axial Precession: ~ Every 26,000 years ~ T

As the old song goes, little things mean a lot. You couldn't see the difference between a little botulin toxin and a lethal dose without a microscope. And I'm sure you wouldn't notice a 0.7 C difference between one room in your house and another, but multiply that amount of energy to a global scale and it starts to add up. Consider what climatologist James Hansen said about the current rate of increase in global warming: “(it's) equivalent to exploding 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs per day, 365 days per year. That’s how much extra energy Earth is gaining each day.”

The Hiroshima fireball was 370 metres (1,200 ft) in diameter, with a surface temperature of 6,000 C.

The surface area of the Earth is 510 million square kilometers.

It seems to me that 400,000 of these could raise the surface temperature of the earth quite a bit. That's 24,000,000,000 square meters of the surface experiencing a 1 degree temperature raise. 40,000 square kilometers experiencing some 300 meter high heat wave of 1 degree too hot per day. In 13 days, the entire earth's surface has raised by 1

My god. By 2012 the average summer temperature in Baltimore would be 155F.

Ah don't worry, we already hit 250C here this past summer. Pretty sure I saw car tires melting in the parking lots...and people bursting into flames. But we've fixed that problem, with this glorious Canadian invention called..."winter."

Or the fact that we are still coming off of an Ice Age that lasted for more than 100,000 years, and ended less than 10,000 years ago (Or the little Ice Age that ended in 1850). Several models predict that the average temperature at the END of the last Ice Age was 15-20C lower than today.

Is global warming happening? Yes. Is the human race a contributing factor? Probably to some degree. Is the human race the only cause? No.

No scientist says humans are the only cause. There are other forcings, positive and negative. The very likely (95%-100%) in the IPCC is to the contention that "most" of the rise in temperature is caused by human forcings. Not "all".

The IPCC's attribution graph [wikipedia.org] shows the various natural and man made radiative forcing's. Without mankind's influence, most climate models predict a very slight cooling for the 20th century. Feedbacks are far more difficult to quantify however using archaeological evidence their magnitude can be inferred. Climatologists use this information to calculate a metric called climate sensitivity [wikipedia.org], this number has hardly changed since it was first derived in the 1970's. A lot of people think the IPCC is exaggerating, observation has shown that their predictions are on the conservative side (in particular the rate of melt at the north pole), cautious conservatism is what one would expect when a couple of thousand experts agree with each other.

While there is non human fluctuation in CO2, currently humans put out for 32 Gigatonnes of CO2 per year. Far exceeding the amount can go through the carbon cycle in a year.CO2 traps IR.Clearly, the current rising trend is due to humans.Without the excess CO2 we have been emiting, we would not be experiencing the current temperature rise.

Or the fact that we are still coming off of an Ice Age that lasted for more than 100,000 years, and ended less than 10,000 years ago (Or the little Ice Age that ended in 1850). Several models predict that the average temperature at the END of the last Ice Age was 15-20C lower than today.

So over 10k years temperature raised 20C, that is (20 / 10000) * 10 = 0.02C per decade, very far from 0.7 / 3 = 0.23 per decade that we see now.
I don't have sources from your numbers, and it's probably safe to assume that the rate of temperature change isn't constant either... So maybe we shouldn't try to model this at all, my calculations above are certainly as ignorant and non-sense as your postulation of numbers...

Is global warming happening? Yes. Is the human race a contributing factor? Probably to some degree. Is the human race the only cause? No.

True, there are many factors that affect the environment, but non other does it with the same speed as humans.
Global warning is primarily man-made, it's a real problem, that's the scientific consensus. And I'm fairly sure that most people on slashdot as just as qualified to discuss the scientific consensus around global warming, as soccer moms are qualified to discuss the merits and "dangers" of vaccinations.

Or the fact that we are still coming off of an Ice Age that lasted for more than 100,000 years, and ended less than 10,000 years ago (Or the little Ice Age that ended in 1850). Several models predict that the average temperature at the END of the last Ice Age was 15-20C lower than today.

Is global warming happening? Yes. Is the human race a contributing factor? Probably to some degree. Is the human race the only cause? No.

I like this game.

Do humans have the capability to mitigate their contribution to warming? Yes. Does any other warming phenomenon? No
Do humans care if these warming effects drastically disrupt the climate that our current society has adapted to so well? Yes. Does anything else? No.

Also a quick note, 20C over 10000 years is.002C/year..7C over 30 years is.023C/year

Also a quick note, 20C over 10000 years is.002C/year..7C over 30 years is.023C/year

Also worth noting is that the global temperatures didn't change 20C. The last glacial maximum was only 3C to 5C cooler than the present (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-es.html). The height of the current interglacial period occurred about 8000 years ago. Since then temperatures have been dropping (up until recently).

Sea levels are set to rise by a meter or more by the end of the century, and the frequency of both droughts and strong storms has already increased dramatically. No, these are not good things.

Also, we only need about 2.2C of warming or so for all of Greenland to melt (though it will take a few centuries to do so). Greenland melting means sea level rise of about seven meters. That's going to drown a lot of cities.

No. As your link points out, sea level has been rising at 3mm/year since 1991. Earlier in the century it was rising at a much lower rate. Prior to that (for the last 4000 years) it was not rising at all: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi... [wikimedia.org].

The temperature difference (on a global scale) between the last ice age and the current interglacial was 4-7C, not your 15-20C.

The human race is not the only source of climate forcings but lately the effects of the known natural forcings would point to a slight cooling trend but it's been warming so it's probably fair to say humans are responsible for more than 100% of the warming.

Just so you know: That "97 percent of all scientists in the world" silliness came from a rigged "poll."

Basically, an AGW-supporting scientist polled a number of his AGW-supporting scientist friends and co-workers - 30 or so - and asked them if they thought AGW was real.

That's where your number came from. Which should tell you something about the actual support for AGW among the scientific population at large...

They recently came up with another poll, where they cherry-picked a bunch of papers, and said "97% of scientific papers agree!" While not mentioning that only about a third of them actually addressed AGW, and they got their "new" 97% by only looking at 65 papers. Out of 12,000. Oops.

ok, so.. read through all of this page, and repeat that this is just a guy polling his friends:

"Basically, an AGW-supporting scientist polled a number of his AGW-supporting scientist friends and co-workers - 30 or so - and asked them if they thought AGW was real."

Not quite true. The original "huge consensus" rumor was started by an article (NOT a peer-reviewed paper) that appeared in Nature by one Naomi Oreskes, years ago. Oreskes claimed to have surveyed a database of science papers and concluded that none of them (not one) disagreed with the greenhouse gas global warming idea.

It was soon shown that Oreskes' "study" was in fact a textbook example of cherry-picking. She had searched the database for papers that included the phrase "global climate change". Only those were included in her analysis. The problem with that being that at the time, only papers that were ABOUT the effects of greenhouse gas warming mentioned the phrase "global climate change" at all. So, in effect, she selected out of the scientific literate just the papers about greenhouse global warming, and then conclude that they all agreed about greenhouse global warming! How surprising!

The fact was, of course, that the majority of climate papers were not about greenhouse warming and never mentioned the subject at all. But those weren't counted.

This "consensus" idea was bolstered by people claiming that almost all of the "thousands" of scientists behind the latest IPCC report had agreed about it. This, too, was a distortion of the truth. The scientists involved in the AR report at the time numbered in the hundreds. There were about 2,500 or so reviewers, and not all of those were scientists. Further, not all of them actually agreed.

Shortly after that, the Petition Project was undertaken to show that scientists in fact did not agree. Some 30,000 people with actual science or engineering credentials signed the petition DISagreeing with greenhouse global warming, and their names and professions are still publicly available at petitionproject.org. More than 9,000 of those were PhDs... far more than the 2500 who supposedly agreed, again many of whom had no advanced degrees.

Another "study" was done in this last year, which came up with that "97%" figure. Unfortunately, THAT "study" suffered from exactly the same flaw as the discredited Oreskes study: it searched the literature for papers that contained the phrase "global climate change". Self-selection at its finest.

And of course then there's the real kicker here: even if these "studies" had not been statistical nonsense, the fact remains that "consensus" is not science. If consensus were a scientifically valid measure of anything, we'd still be in the stone ages.

It was soon shown that Oreskes' "study" was in fact a textbook example of cherry-picking. She had searched the database for papers that included the phrase "global climate change". Only those were included in her analysis. The problem with that being that at the time, only papers that were ABOUT the effects of greenhouse gas warming mentioned the phrase "global climate change" at all. So, in effect, she selected out of the scientific literate just the papers about greenhouse global warming, and then conclud

"Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers"

This study does not seem to have the flaws you mention. There have been several studies I've seen with similar outcomes.

Not quite true. The original "huge consensus" rumor was started by an article (NOT a peer-reviewed paper) that appeared in Nature by one Naomi Oreskes, years ago. Oreskes claimed to have surveyed a database of science papers and concluded that none of them (not one) disagreed with the greenhouse gas global warming idea.

Ahh, yes, the old Oreskes essay "scandal". It was not published in Nature, but in Science. Small quibble, but if you're going to be critical of something, at least get your facts correct.

It was soon shown that Oreskes' "study" was in fact a textbook example of cherry-picking. She had searched the database for papers that included the phrase "global climate change". Only those were included in her analysis. The problem with that being that at the time, only papers that were ABOUT the effects of greenhouse gas warming mentioned the phrase "global climate change" at all. So, in effect, she selected out of the scientific literate just the papers about greenhouse global warming, and then conclude that they all agreed about greenhouse global warming! How surprising!

No, it wasn't. It was exactly what it claimed to be. The phrase used did not include the word "global"; it was just "climate change" (which could go either way -- remember all those supposed "global cooling" papers from the 70s? They would still qualify as they referred to "climate change").

Yes, she chose "climate change" because, you know, all those papers on the reproduction cycles of ring-tailed lemurs are not so relevant to the subject.

She did not select papers about greenhouse global warming, as those were not her search terms. The fact that most of the papers that mentioned "climate change" endorsed anthropogenic causes to some degree or another, rather than saying it was something else when they most certainly could, is significant and not a simple result of cherry-picking.

The fact was, of course, that the majority of climate papers were not about greenhouse warming and never mentioned the subject at all. But those weren't counted

Incorrect. 25% of the papers she counted did not endorse or were neutral on the subject of anthropogenic causes. NONE of them rejected it.

Further, her essay was formally challenged by Dr. Benny Peiser, who ended up later retracting his challenge, concluding:

"Only [a] few abstracts explicitly reject or doubt the AGW (anthropogenic global warming) consensus which is why I have publicly withdrawn this point of my critique. [snip] I do not think anyone is questioning that we are in a period of global warming. Neither do I doubt that the overwhelming majority of climatologists is agreed that the current warming period is mostly due to human impact."

This "consensus" idea was bolstered by people claiming that almost all of the "thousands" of scientists behind the latest IPCC report had agreed about it. This, too, was a distortion of the truth. The scientists involved in the AR report at the time numbered in the hundreds. There were about 2,500 or so reviewers, and not all of those were scientists. Further, not all of them actually agreed.

"bolstered by people" By whom? The 97% figures come from several independent studies, most of them dealing with longer periods and an order of magnitude larger sample size than the one Oreskes used. None of them refer to the "thousands of scientists behind the latest IPCC report". I question where you're getting your information, because it isn't from the people performing the actual research.

Shortly after that, the Petition Project was undertaken to show that scientists in fact did not agree. Some 30,000 people with actual science or engineering credentials signed the petition DISagreeing with greenhouse global warming, and their names and professions are still publicly available at petitionproject.org. More than 9,000 of those were PhDs... far more than the 2500 who supposedly agreed, again many of whom had no advanced degrees.

The Petition Project was done by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, which is a known house of whackjobs, including Arthur B. Robinson, of hormesis "let's sprinkle a little radiation over the country" fame. It was largely an informal, unverified petition which was more or less a public "opinion poll". It was not anywhere near as well researched as Oreskes' or the other studies which are relevant to the subject.

As for people with PhDs having an opinion on AGW, I think Peter Hadfield summed it up well:

"In between Aaagard and Zylkowski, the first and last names on the petition, are an assortment of metallurgists, botanists, agronomists, organic chemists and so on.... The vast majority of scientists who signed the petition have never studied climatology and don't do any research into it. It doesn't matter if you're a Ph.D. A Ph.D in metallurgy just makes you better at metallurgy. It does not transform you into some kind of expert in paleoclimatology.... So the petition's suggestion that everyone with a degree in metallurgy or geophysics knows a lot about climate change, or is familiar with all the research that's been done, is patent crap."

Further, the petition, and the associated manifesto that was attached to it were fraudulently presented to those polled as if it were a peer-reviewed science paper in PNAS. Robinson responded, of course, "I used the Proceedings as a model, but only to put the information in a format that scientists like to read, not to fool people into thinking it is from a journal". Sure you did, Art; sure you did.

Another "study" was done in this last year, which came up with that "97%" figure. Unfortunately, THAT "study" suffered from exactly the same flaw as the discredited Oreskes study: it searched the literature for papers that contained the phrase "global climate change". Self-selection at its finest.

Oreskes' study is not discredited, at least by anyone with any qualifications worth taking seriously. I mean, Monckton discredits it, but he's about as qualified to speak on the subject as BP is on the health benefits of oil spills.

There are two recent independent studies which come to the same conclusions. Cook's and Powell's research looked at 12,000 and 14,000 papers, respectively for the period 1991-2012. Further, they polled the actual authors of the papers in question directly, so it is more than just a simple analysis of the papers.

You seem to take issue with the search term "climate change". What search term do you think would give better results and find those "missing" papers contrary to the consensus view?

And of course then there's the real kicker here: even if these "studies" had not been statistical nonsense, the fact remains that "consensus" is not science. If consensus were a scientifically valid measure of anything, we'd still be in the stone ages.

Science is BUILT on consensus. Do you even know what consensus means? It is the point where scientists stop arguing, and accept a particular understanding as a practical view of reality. Further, they start building on each others' work, which leads to some truly amazing things, like the Internet, the transistor, vaccines, etc. That a tiny percentage of scientists in any particular discipline disagree doesn't change anything -- in fact, it is important for scientists, and the health of science in general, to be skeptical, even of the consensus. It sometimes can help refine/correct the consensus, but it rarely changes the consensus view wholesale. That said, the consensus view allows us to make important decisions, because it is very likely the most correct representation of reality.

Further, our LIVES are built around a consensus understanding of reality. Lay consensus isn't always correct, but the vast majority of the time, it is. For example, the consensus view is that if you put your hand in a flame for long enough, it will get burned and hurt. You don't need to experiment for yourself; you can accept the consensus view and choose not to stick your hand in a fire.

We're never ever going to have unanimity in agreement for everything in science, thus we should never wait for it before we choose to act, especially when time is a factor, like it is with climate change. You can poo-poo about the consensus view all you want, but until someone actually provides an alternative with more support, I think I will take the consensus view as practically correct, and act accordingly. I am still going to be open-minded about challenges and alternatives to it, but I am not waiting around for them.

If consensus were a scientifically valid measure of anything, we'd still be in the stone ages.

Perhaps that's why you have so much trouble comprehending this issue, go and read about Karl Popper's "republic of science" and tell us all how that is different from "consensus". At the end of the day Science is a philosophy, your own track record of posts on AGW indicate you are unable to apply that philosophy to real world questions. You clearly judge your sources not by their content but by their political colour, which is why you link to Anthony Watts and avoid the internationally recognised leaders in

The thing is, it really doesn't matter how many scientists support it. Science isn't a democracy. See the pamphlet called 100 authors against Einstein. Einstein replied that it didn't need 100 people do disprove his theory of relativity, rather all it needed was one fact. I really hate how modern science has turned into this "if the majority believes it, it must be true." I'm sure the majority of the world still believes in creationism, but they're also still wrong.

Actually, most scientists in the climate field believe in AGW. They will continue to do so as long as it is easier to get funding for projects intended to prove it exists. They will cease doing so when it's easier to get funding for projects intended to prove it doesn't exist.

What an opportunity for the fossil fuel companies! If they got together they could easily provide a $1 billion fund to provide grants to prove AGW doesn't exist. They ought to try it and see who bites.

The reality is that any scientist who tries to get grants based on false premises sooner or later will find themselves shut out from the process. That's the beauty of science, it's self correcting. It may take a while but eventually reality wins out. With a few notable exceptions scientists are smart enou

When it comes to modeling, "predicting" old data is actually an invaluable technique for developing useful models. For instance, if you're working with machine learning algorithms, it's typical to segregate your data into a training set and a test set (sometimes an additional validation set as well). The training set is used to teach the machine learning algorithms, thus establishing a model. You then take that model and run it over the test set to see how well it matches.

Put differently, rather than creating a model from all of the old data (which, as you said, is trivial and not really that impressive), you put yourself in the shoes of a 1970s scientist and try to use the data from only up to that point to create a model that will work for the next 40 years. You then get to fast forward 40 years and see how you did. If you didn't get it right, you go back and try again.

Small fluctuations in local weather are much, much, much, much more chaotic than large fluctuations in global climate. This is hardly unique to atmospheric sciences.

Lets us an IT analogy, lets say you manage a large data center and your head of IT comes up and says something like this:"Over the next 5 years, 15% of the hard drives in this data center will fail. We need to take these basic precautions."

Your response would be like:"Why on earth should I trust your estimate for 5 years from today when you can't tell me exactly which servers will fail within the next 6 months!?"

And then you'd get angry at him 5 years down the road when only 14% of the drives failed and be all like:"See! I told you there was nothing to worry about!"

There's a very significant difference between accurate prediction of the outcome of a random variable vs. measuring the statistical properties of said random variable.

Try this analogy to help you understand this...

Let's play a simple game, called "Pick a Marble". You reach into a bag and pick a marble.

Today, we'll play with the following conditions... There are 1000 marbles in that bag. 100 of those are red. 900 of those are white. I'm going to "predict" that your marble is white. It ought to pretty cl

There was no decision to change it, they are two different terms. Global Warming is a subset of Climate Change. The confusion of terms exists only in the reporting of the general, non-scientific press and the minds of Internet dogs who think checking a household thermometer means they themselves are qualified to hold a valid opinion.

The IPCC was created back in 1988 at the request of WMO (World Meteorological Organization) and the UNEP (United Nations Environment Program).

The UNEP was formed in 1972 to study man's interaction with and impact on the environment.

The WMO was researching "potential global warming caused by the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere" back in the mid-1970s.

Back in 1956 scientist Gilbert Plass published a study titled "The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change".

In a 1975 Science article by geochemist Wallace Broecker of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory: "Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?"

That's because you are looking at climate models calibrated against that data that you are comparing to. Circular logic.

If you look at the predictions from past IPCC reports, very few of their predicted temperature profiles match the later observed conditions. That is a failure of the models' predictive power. That doesn't mean there isn't warming, just that the Earth's climate is a more complex system than can be accurately simulated with modern computing hardware.

Following your advice, I looked at the overview from the first IPCC report [www.ipcc.ch], and in section 2 it lists one prediction as about a 1 degree Celsius increase in temperature between the time of that report (1990) and 2025. It's not 2025 yet, but based on an observed warming of about 0.16 degree Celsius per decade, we should see a warming of about 0.8 degrees Celsius between 1990 and 2025. It falls a bit short of one full degree, but the prediction was literally "about 1 degree Celsius," and 0.8 degrees Celsius is in fact about 1 degree Celsius.

Check your math--1990-2025 is 35 years, or 3.5 decades. At 0.16 degree C per decade, that's 0.56, not 0.8. And it's a lot harder to argue that 0.56 is "about 1"; most people would say that it's "about one half".

Actually predictions of the amount of warming have been pretty accurate, what was unexpected was that the atmosphere stopped warming so much and instead a lot of the energy went into the oceans. Sceptics make a lot of the recent "pause" in warming, but actually there is no pause when you remember to consider the oceans as well as the atmosphere.

Spencer has contributed specific work in peer reviewed journals that is part of the scientific discussion, but his overall opinion on climate change is motivated more by his own religion than anything else. He's both sympathetic to intelligent design and signed a statement which said among other things ""Earth and its ecosystems – created by God's intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence – are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer_(scientist)#Climate_change [wikipedia.org] Essentially he believes that climate change isn't happening because his religion won't let him. Note how that statement wasn't even just about climate, but about ecosystems as a whole. Christy doesn't seem to have that same sort of underlying motivation and might make more sense to pay attention to, but in this context, the vast majority of experts disagree with both of them, and when dealing with complicated scientific issues, using expert consensus is a useful heuristic, that's before we get to the serious issue that not only is the expert consensus clear, it is a consensus about some very bad results, not just a consensus about an issue which doesn't have substantial impact.

Spencer has contributed specific work in peer reviewed journals that is part of the scientific discussion, but his overall opinion on climate change is motivated more by his own religion than anything else. He's both sympathetic to intelligent design and signed a statement which said among other things ""Earth and its ecosystems – created by God's intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence – are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer_(scientist)#Climate_change [wikipedia.org] Essentially he believes that climate change isn't happening because his religion won't let him. Note how that statement wasn't even just about climate, but about ecosystems as a whole. Christy doesn't seem to have that same sort of underlying motivation and might make more sense to pay attention to, but in this context, the vast majority of experts disagree with both of them, and when dealing with complicated scientific issues, using expert consensus is a useful heuristic, that's before we get to the serious issue that not only is the expert consensus clear, it is a consensus about some very bad results, not just a consensus about an issue which doesn't have substantial impact.

As opposed to climate change being a religion unto itself

Guess you must have missed this from TFA:

Messrs. McNider and Christy are professors of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and fellows of the American Meteorological Society. Mr. Christy was a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore.

Using your comments. We should also cancel out avid atheists too then? I'd be curious to see if there are any REAL people in the middle when it comes to scientists in either way. In same same vein, we should cancel out studies by scientist who get paid to do studies by any person, organization or government that wants to prove global warming is man made. Try to find some real neutrality by honestly curious scientist, I'm wondering if you really could.

A more interesting question is why Spencer never publishes any of his alleged massive critiques of AGW in peer reviewed journals. He seems to be quick to a check from the Koch Brothers and various other pro-oil interests, but oddly never seems to actually publish these resounding rebuttals in any kind of scientific venue.

Climate researcher and IPCC co-author Eduardo Zorita calls for Warmergate plumbers Michael Mann, Phil Jones and Stefan Rahmstorf to be barred from the IPCC process and muses on the “very troubling professional behavior” evident in those leaked emails:

I may confirm what has been written in other places: research in some areas of climate science has been and is full of machination, conspiracies, and collusion, as any reader can interpret from the CRU-files

I am also aware that in this thick atmosphere – and I am not speaking of greenhouse gases now – editors, reviewers and authors of alternative studies, analysis, interpretations, even based on the same data we have at our disposal, have been bullied and subtly blackmailed. In this atmosphere, Ph D students are often tempted to tweak their data so as to fit the ‘politically correct picture’.

The Climategate emails reveal that when the scientist-activists saw skeptical scientists successfully calling public attention to such evidence, they went on a vicious attack, pulling strings to pressure universities and science journals to fire or blackball the skeptical scientists for presenting their competing theories and evidence. The Climategate emails also show Mann as one of the most aggressive warriors in the battle to publicly disparage and ruin the careers of scientists who disagree with his views on global warming.

For example, upset that Harvard University researchers were successfully arguing that solar variance rather than carbon dioxide emissions are the most likely primary cause of recent global temperature fluctuations, Mann sent out an email seeking to coordinate action to pressure Harvard to rebuke or discipline the researchers. “If someone has close ties w/ any individuals there [at Harvard] who might be in a position to actually get some action taken on this, I’d highly encourage pursuing this,” writes Mann to fellow scientist-activists.

The Climategate emails also reveal Mann recruiting investigative journalists to dig up dirt on scientist Steve McIntyre, who had called into questions Mann’s scientific theories.

There is plenty more if you dig into that instead of conspiracy theories about the "Koch brothers."

I, too, used to think climategate showed all those things. I read article after article about them and how it's all over for AGW, etc. However, when taken in context, those emails actually refer to something totally other than what they were made out to refer to. I highly recommend you check out this video [youtube.com] and this one [youtube.com] wherein potholer54 takes an in-depth and impartial look into climategate and reveals what it actually shows... as a spoiler, it doesn't reveal that there's a giant AGW conspiracy amongst all the climate scientists in the world.

However, he pretends that the problem with "hide the decline" is about something other than tree rings...

Where does he say that? He says at 4:12: "But in fact, Jones was talking about something completely different [than the decline in the global temperature]: the apparent decline in temperatures shown by tree ring data since the 1950s." He is exactly stating that "hide the decline" has something to do with tree rings.

Basically, the guys "hiding the decline" desperately needed to hide the decline in temperatures for that part of their reconstruction in order for that reconstruction to be used as a metric for past temperatures versus CO2.

Yes, exactly as potholer says at 4:27: "The argument is whether tree rings should be used when reconstructing pre-industrial climates." You make this out to be somet

This all came out in the Climategate emails. But you never heard about those, did you?

We are well aware of release of emails from the University of East Anglia. The attempt at connecting it with watergate fails, as unlike watergate there is no smoking gun. Nothing in the emails shows any conspiracy. There is no blocking of "anti-AGW" papers. There are no "anti-AGW" papers to block. And nothing in the emails says otherwise

"Hide the decline" ring a bell?

It sure does.

"Many commentators quoted one email in which Phil Jones said he had used "Mike's Nature trick" in a 1999 graph for the World Meteorological Organization "to hide the decline" in proxy temperatures derived from tree ring analyses when measured temperatures were actually rising. This 'decline' referred to the well-discussed tree ring divergence problem, but these two phrases were taken out of context by climate change sceptics, including US Senator Jim Inhofe and former Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin, as though they referred to some decline in measured global temperatures, even though they were written when temperatures were at a record high.[32] John Tierney, writing in the New York Times in November 2009, said that the claims by sceptics of "hoax" or "fraud" were incorrect, but that the graph on the cover of a report for policy makers and journalists did not show these non-experts where proxy measurements changed to measured temperatures.[33] The final analyses from various subsequent inquiries concluded that in this context 'trick' was normal scientific or mathematical jargon for a neat way of handling data, in this case a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion.[34][35] The EPA notes that in fact, the evidence shows that the research community was fully aware of these issues and that no one was hiding or concealing them.[36]"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... [wikipedia.org]

Or "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on... shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate."

Heh, I love it when deniers mindlessly repeat that quote. You don't even know what it means, do you? Because if you did, you certainly wouldn't be mentioning it.

You see, we measure how much energy the Sun outputs. And we measure how much the Earth reflects of that energy (its albedo). We also measure how much it radiates, which - if the Earth was at a stable temperature - would be the same as the difference between the first two. Understand so far? That's what the "CERES data" refers to.

What Trenberth is saying is that the CERES data shows there should be far *more* warming than we're actually measuring! When you take into account air temperature increase, melting ice, sea temperature increase, etc etc it *still* leaves a big chunk of energy to account for. Now, any sane person would therefore assume that the energy can't just vanish: it's got to go somewhere that we aren't measuring.

Not the deniers, they think it's all being whisked away by the natural cycle fairies. Or perhaps they just don't understand what it is they're saying and are mindlessly repeating what they read on some blog. Hey, maybe you can tell us. Which is it?

I'm sure this will be an intelligent discussion since we have so many people visiting here who are solid scientific thinkers, are experts in the field and will be able to intelligently discuss the nuances of this subject. I doubt we will see personal bias. I'm sure the discussion will be well reasoned and without hyperbole.I personally don't feel I have to check back on the discussion since I have already made up my mind.
(for the impaired)

I can't speak to the accuracy of historic weather data or modern weather models, but I can say this:

Global Warming / Climate Change (pick one, please) alarmists do themselves an incredible amount of damage when they do the following:

1. Grossly exaggerate predictions and base everything on the worst case they can find.2. Manipulate charts to make changes look far more significant than they really are.3. Instantly ridicule anyone who disagrees with them on anything, even if that disagreement is valid.

Let's say for the sake of argument that all of the predictions from these weather models are 100% accurate, all of the research and data is correct, and that the climate is indeed warming because of CO2 emissions, and that the climate will warm 5 Celsius degrees in the next 200 years. Let's pretend that the science is completely perfect.

Do you see why so many people don't listen to those who are trying to push human-caused climate change?

Politics needs to be taken out of the equation. Completely. Everything needs to be 100% transparent. The science needs to be broken down in ways the average person can understand. Even if that happens, it will be decades before the damage the global warming alarmists have caused can be reversed.

How long do you think it'll take for you to bleed to death if I shoot you with a pistol?
Its not an easy problem to predict. You don't know precisely where you will be shot, if the bullet will go straight through or lodge in bone, or ricochet. You don't know how long your blood will take to clot.
You can be pretty sure that, left unattended, you will die from being shot. But predicting exactly how long you will have is rather hard.
CO2 levels cause global warming by basic physics, just as a greenhouse is warmer inside than outside. You trap the heat in, but let the visible light through. What the exact consequences of a certain CO2 level are is hard to say preciously, but if CO2 levels keep going up and up and up you can be sure that the polar ice caps are going to melt and sealevels are going to rise dramatically. Precisely when this will happen is as hard to predict as how long it'll take you to bleed out from a gunshot wound, but you wouldn't argue that because its hard to determine how long you have, it's not worth trying to avoid getting shot!

"CO2 levels cause global warming by basic physics, just as a greenhouse is warmer inside than outside"

Complete and total crap.

1. CO2 levels are a response to past warming 800 to 1000 years ago, as all of the ice core records testify2. Greenhouses do not warm via the "atmospheric greenhouse effect" of suppressing radiation but by suppressing convection, an effect demonstrated a hundred years ago.

If you want to invoke basic physics, then you first have to learn basic physics

The State of the Climate 2012 paper is... get this... from two years ago. After they had to start "adjusting" their models to reflect reality.

When you look at the actual historical AGW models, we're below their "optimistic" model (the one where we cut CO2 drastically over the last couple of decades - which didn't happen). And a good 0.2 C below their "probable" models.

If you're looking at predictions, go back and look at the climate models from the late 1980s and early 1990s. They're off, by a ridiculous amount.

Out of 90 models (yes, ninety), a grand total of TWO managed to predict the current temperature.

Spencer's scientific views are being affected by his religious beliefs. He is a signatory to a document called An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming, which holds that Earth was created by "God's intelligent design" and that ecosystems are therefore "robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting". Whatever you might think of this, it is definitely not a scientific statement. Basically, he refuses to accept, for religious reasons, that humans can have an effect on the Earth's climate – in his theology, only God can do that.

Spencer is also a major proponent of the "intelligent design" scam. And both he and John Christy are based out of Alabama, one of the most backward and scientifically illiterate states in the U.S.

For several years Gavin Schmidt, one of the principals of the NASA/GISS Model/E climate model, has been doing a comparison of model output to observations. There isn't an update for 2013 yet but the comparison through 2012 is available here. [realclimate.org]

The error bars on some of those graphs are so monstrously large it would be almost impossible for the real data to fall outside that range (in the first one, the margin of error for the forecast grows to a range of almost 0 degrees to 1). Anything with that much error has no real predictive value whatsoever.

Where does the 0.7C warming since 1980 figure come from exactly? I make it roughly 0.7F (note: FAHRENHEIT) from 1980 until the last point in 2012. That's an anomaly of around 0.4C, which seems to tie in with the graph on the R Spencer page.

I only bothered w/the McNider & Christy article.
Do they fix the physics of any of the models? No.
Do they put forward their own model? No.
Do they have any scientific explanation for changes in weather patterns:

Shouldn't modelers be more humble and open to saying that perhaps the Arctic warming is due to something we don't understand?

Since 1976, every year including 2012 has had an annual temperature above the long-term average. Including the 2012 temperature, the rate of warming is 0.06C (0.11F) per decade since 1880 and a more rapid 0.16C (0.28F) per decade since 1970, according to the 2012 annual report from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center.

Take look at the graph [climate.gov] they are referring to. Between 1880 and 2010 there is a change of 1.43 F giving a per decade increase of.11F. But wait, that is not the whole picture. It ignores the period between 1880 and 1910 when global temperatures were decreasing. If you look at the increase since 1910 you get 2F over ten decades which is.2F per decade. It also ignores the time between 1910 and 1940 where the temperature changed 1.1F or 0.37F/decade. Compared with the time between 1910 and 1940 global warming is slowing.To me it looks like they are picking data that agrees with their conclusion.

Apparently the concept of making all weather more extreme has been lost here. That would mean winter storms will be more extreme as well. Perhaps it's hard to imagine why global warming would make more snow in some areas, but failures of some people's imagination doesn't make something less true.

Also, if we're talking about the gravy train, don't the people emitting greenhouse gasses have a much larger financial stake than the scientists researching it? I doubt all the climate research funding world wi

And yet EVERYTHING is now caused by AGW. Heat Waves. Cold Spells, Floods. Droughts. Today, I saw a report linking Crime to Global Warming. Last year, it caused prostitution for impoverished women.
About the ONLY thing not linked to AGW is the Heartbreak of Psoriasis and Waxy Yellow Buildup. But hey, it's only February. . . .

I don't think it should be surprising if changes in climate affect the behavior of people in areas. If food becomes more plentiful I bet crime goes down. If food and water become more scarce I bet it goes up. If the weather patterns are changing surely some areas are going to get drier and some are going to get wetter. Also, as events become more extreme all the extreme weather events you sited are likely to happen more often too, don't you think? So you're right, global warming almost certainly is doing all those things.

I don't see why it's controversial to think that. Even if you don't think people have anything to do with changing climate all those effects are obvious outcomes of it changing, and I don't think many people actually doubt that it is changing.

"Let's pretend"... Yes, the AGW crowd seems to be doing plenty of that with their numbers.

Take down all those rural weather stations because we don't need them. We can just use the numbers from the ones located in the middle of the asphalt parking lots and pretend we know how to properly adjust the numbers to get some data we can pretend is accurate.